Organized people intrigue me. My mom is very organized. I've normally been one to follow schedules or routine, but organization is a trait that has always alluded me. My daily routine has most commonly been habitual more than harmonized. Sort of a mash of what needs to be done. Making it flow in an organized manor? HA! Good luck.
Well, since being pregnant with my daughter I've fell into the routine of ..., for lack of a better word, BLAH! Wake up either when the kid does or when we feel like it. Get dressed when we feel like it. Eat what ever we feel like. DO what every we FEEL like. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz BLAH! I'm finally so board of it. Especially now that the kid is pushing 4 years old. Of course it was not always like this as any one would know that has had a baby, especially their first. Babies are on their own schedule and you better abide or face the wrath. The first year was CRAZY and went by like a whirl wind. The next was a wonderful year of discoveries and firsts. And, of course, every chance we get we go out and see the world in a new and exciting way. But our every day life at home was lacking adventure. ..And it was all my fault.
I hear it all the time that kids do well with order and routine. I can agree with that, but always lived a little ... unconfined with the kid because ya just never know what's going to happen. I didn't want to be that mom that was tied to the baby's schedule. Yes, I breast feed. No we didn't have a regular baby sitter. No we did not have lots of relatives as baby sitting back up. We took her with us. She learned to sleep with noise around her, when it was convenient , in the car (which is the best as we all know), she meet lots of people, we saw lots of things ... before she was even one. Now that she is not a baby any more and doesn't require the 24-7 care that babies need, it's getting a little lackadaisical around here. It was not a sudden change like having a baby. One day you are two people, the next you are PARENTS and a family and years of responsibility hanging over your head. It's one of those things that sort of creeps up on you. Especially through the winter months. So I'm determined to change all that.
As I have said, I've decided to home school and that is still going well. Every few days we work on some type of preschool activity or work sheets. She always does very well and I often find my self looking for more challenging stuff to keep her as interested in learning as she is right now. Very soon this is going to prove to be tougher and tougher and we will need to invest a lot more time and money into school work. All the more reason to get my shit together and back on schedule. My goal is not only to get back to more of a daily routine, but to be better and more efficient at it. Not just to get my life in order and to better my child's life and jump on education, but to OWN it!
Things I'm doing to make this change:
I've tried before to just do it!! Make the schedule being sure to include all that is needed to be done. Then make sure I follow it to a T. ..Or pretty close to it. (I'm not that OCD) It may even go very well for a day or so, but that's about as far as I take it. I'm the worlds best procrastinator. I'm a stay-at-home-mom, I can always do it tomorrow. Well, pretty soon the tomorrows will be limited and I won't be able to make that big change in enough time. So I've finally learned that I need to take baby steps. They say if you do something for 30 days it will become routine. So I've made my self a motivational calender. I need to start with my self. (One of my rules of life. If number one is not happy, the people you love that are around you will not be happy.) For the month of February I have vowed to myself to work out a reasonable amount of days each week. I realize it's not good to work out every single day nor is it necessary to obsess about the plan of attack. But if I am determined to make the effort, by months end it should be habit. The following month I will work out 4+ days a week and fit in daily planning for the kid's schooling and to get on a house cleaning schedule. (One of my biggest obstructions.) Once again not stressing out and completely bailing on the whole idea and effort due to a little sway from planning. And so on. I have about 4 months worth of reconstructing so far. My calender heading says 'DO IT!' since that seems to be my preferred encouragement phrase. I often say it to the kid when she's being poky about something. I have the calender pinned right next to my bedroom door so I see it every morning as I leave my room. I mark off each day with red ink when I actually 'do it'. When I don't it's there staring at me every morning making me feel guilty.
Also ... I've started .. with another routine of sorts. It's more of a spiritual ritual I guess you could say. It's something I've been very curious about for quite a while now. The background that eventually led me to these types of thoughts and explorations are for another time. But as for my slow progress to a more balanced self I've began to delve into a type of meditation, if you will. I try to get a chance to devote even just a few minutes a day to focus and sort of visualize what is most important to me and to try and remember to stay on path through the day with what is of most substance. As I do this I see my (aging) body, my child, my marriage, the people I love and the fact that I'm not just cleverly disguised as an adult, but I actually am one and the responsibilities that I have because of it.
Now I don't know if all this focusing and "meditation" is actually doing it's part and helping me be more relaxed about the routine and enabling me to go with the flow letting me be more successful, or if it's more of an obsession in disguise. I think about it more, not wanting it to fail, wanting it to actually be doing some good. In the end, does it really matter how the result is meet if the result is what is desired?
I'm starting to feel more comfortable with the whole thing and feel like this could finally be it. The time that doesn't go down as, "Ya, I tried that once". I just need to keep remembering to DO IT! So far so good. We'll see in another month if it pays off.
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